


The Auctioneer

by Aelia_Aeldyne



Series: Midnight writings [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27869290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelia_Aeldyne/pseuds/Aelia_Aeldyne
Series: Midnight writings [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181489





	The Auctioneer

Nezam yawned as he sped through the traffic on his bike, slaloming between cars like a honey badger on drugs. He never wore a helmet; half of his face was steel and nanites, the other was an artificial ersatz of flesh and his skull contained nothing that wasn’t replaceable – his brain had long been digitalized and safely stored in a bank vault in fort Knox – which meant he could afford to take the impacts. Some of the parts in his arms and legs would be trickier to replace, but any good cybernetist would have them, and Nezam knew the best.

Traffic in Los Angeles at 5am happened to be horribly sluggish, the speed difference between him and the cars around him activating the very much not needed response of fatigue in his brain. He yawned again and pressed a button beneath the right handle. The coils around the metallic rods holding the wheels sprung to life, ejecting the bike and its rider upwards onto the highway bridge nearby. Nezam didn’t resist the urge to perform a few acrobatics while mid-air – he never did, it helped him get awake faster.

His thoughts drifted away as he was driving, towards the memories of the first man he’d ever sold. The man had been a forty-something ex-marine missing an eye and vocal cords; he went to barter, because Nezam had been a fledgling auctioneer back then, and customers weren’t willing to give him the credits he wanted. He made do with merchandise and all things considered he’d come out rather well of this period of his life. The veteran’s sale had earned him a few ingots of electrum that he’d promptly exchanged to a metallist for an AK-773, one of the best assault rifles twenty years ago. He’d then gone on to rob a few Brazilian oligarchs with a gang and earned himself enough to start a respectable auction.

Now he was _the_ Auctioneer, the most feared, hated and respected man in America. Nezam bought and sold flesh and souls, however errant they might be, and he had a perfect work ethic. He was rich enough to buy out all of his rivals and still be well-off, he had enough men at his beck and call that he could probably overthrow the President and he’d sundered so many bonds by sending people off to new owners that it had been statistically proved that there was not a single family north of the Panama Canal that hadn’t seen one of its members in the spotlight of Nezam’s auction.

Through the twisted irony of fate, the veteran he’d once sold had come into his hands again, an owner entirely different from the original one having become dissatisfied with a greying handicapped soldier for whom he wasn’t willing to pay rejuvenation treatments. This time, Nezam had bought the man for himself, then freed and recruited him out of gratitude. After all, the foundations of great fortunes are made of small humble stones. He’d learned the name of the man, then. And now Viktor was his bodyguard, equipped with the best non-army-restricted gear available and a few possibly illegal augments.

Nezam smiled to himself. Fate was a fickle mistress. He’d known good fortune and he knew it would not last forever. But he was a clever man, and resourceful. He could teeter on the edge of forever and enjoy good luck until he fell over. He’d find a way.

Finally, he approached the auction tower.

Built with his own money – that of his company, rather – the NZM tower was a beast of carbon and chrome. It stood in the center of Los Angeles like a monument to his success, an obelisk of black and gold celebrating the trade of the human resource. He was proud of it; he’d designed it himself. The tower was over a thousand feet high and half as wide at the base, plated with translucent graphite panels and chrome armor, and a few purple light lines to complement the palette. Giant horizontal scrollers displayed the constantly shifting stock market values on the outside, meaning that a few traders would always stand in front of the tower to observe and trade remotely. He’d made them pay, of course. Viewing the screens required special glasses that NZM was of course glad to provide at a price. He’d also made sure to always get a stable and fast internet for those screens, since they were a merchandise as well.

Couldn’t disappoint the customers.

Near the front gate, there was a descending ramp leading to a huge underground parking. He drove there, until the lowest level, clearing a security check to access the private parking spots, before dismounting and taking the elevator towards his office.

It was his only in name. In truth, he only kept there a closet with work clothes – that is, a couple of fancy suits and extravagant outfits, or perfectly designed baggy clothes for Monday morning auctions – it was company protocol that the Monday morning auctions were more relaxed. He’d not sell anything living on a Monday morning, and he’d not let a bid go over a hundred thousand universal credits. Which were roughly worth three hundred thousand in US dollars, but nearly every company that dealt in the human resource used universal credits. The office was in fact a floor-wide penthouse where his secretary lived for herself and worked for him – and regularly fucked him as well.

Natasha was nearly sixty years old, but a strict life discipline coupled with technology had left her looking barely out of her thirties; she’d been widowed twice and did not have the slightest intention to remarry a third time. But her and Nezam were very much thirsting for each other – mostly for the company, he suspected, neither of them being very interested in carnal matters - , so they’d come to an agreement. If they had more than half an hour of free time and it was at least one hour before the day’s opening or after the closing, then they’d consider banging.

Today… It’d depend on how he felt after his morning coffee, he thought. It was very possible that he would be rather down for the entire day, and it was equally possible that his entire brain would be overloaded for the next twenty hours.

After a painfully slow one-minute rise to the 2nd top floor, the gates of the elevator opened, revealing a dark grey carpet with red highlights. Tasteful, which meant he’d not been the one to choose it. Hexagonal patterns… Definitely one of the crew members, yeah. Sadaki, if he remembered correctly; the Japanese-American programmer had a fancy for geometry. Granted, Sadaki’s quarters were on the floor right below, but the man spent more time in this floor’s couches, lounging around like some sort of cybernetic cat. Nezam said nothing, because Sadaki was a long-time friend and hellishly skilled with a computer besides.

Also neither of them were the ones cleaning up behind Sadaki’s snack times, which explained a lot about their shared carefreeness. Natasha had tried to make the programmer clean behind himself exactly once – not being able to use any sort of electronic device for the entire day had been severe enough retaliation that she pulled back before the day was even over.

Punctual as ever, Viktor silently arrived from the other elevator with a bundle of papers in hand just as Nezam was stepping into the room and heading towards the coffee machine. Testament to his skill, the towering man managed to skulk silently under the light and leave no footsteps on the carpet even though he was wearing a bulky-looking exo-armor.

Greetings were quickly exchanged, before digging into the morning matters.

“Welcome, Boss. Here’s the stuff ma’am Nat thought you should check before giving the start.”

Surprisingly for a man his size, Viktor had a rather high-pitched voice, or at least higher pitched than what you’d expect from a 217cm-tall square-faced soldier. His tone was measured, his voice calm and his words never betraying emotion. Nezam could not remember him actually displaying emotions, save for the time where he’d been told that he was freed and would be hired if he wanted. It had been something like disbelief, before it dawned on him and a predatory rictus had bloomed on the veteran’s face. He’d understood that Nezam, for all weaker than himself that he was, was far higher on the food chain and working for him was the best option.

And as the Auctioneer’s bodyguard, he never ran out of work. For better or for worse, Nezam had made a lot of enemies, and while he was cordial with a non-negligible part of them, most of the rest wanted him dead and was most certainly capable of trying to reach that end. Mailed bombs, poison attacks, shootouts… There were few physical means short of a high-yield missile that had yet to be tried against Nezam, and none that had managed to overcome the barrier that was Viktor.

The sheer amount of murder and assassination attempts that Nezam had survived, sometimes at the cost of grievous wounds, had earned him the infamous nickname of Neon Cockroach, and it was somewhat of a meme that nothing short of a nuke could actually bring the Auctioneer down, but a double tap would be needed just to make sure anyway. And both Viktor and Nezam drank to that every time they went browsing for memes, because it was just how far the Auctioneer’s legend had grown.

And of course every legend has a grain of truth to it. Unless it was a direct hit, a nuke was actually quite unlikely to kill Nezam for good. When he’d first seen the Neon Cockroach nickname, he’d taken it as an opportunity. It was a valid reason to actually get the reinforcements he’d wanted for a long time but couldn’t justify beyond paranoia. But with the myth behind him… Well, you can’t kill a story.

He sighed.

“Alright, lemme see what we got.”


End file.
